A/N - River/Jayne, post BDM (if you read it just so, all squinty-eyed and such, you might could see pre-Rayne). Anyhow, so I was just sitting there and suddenly I was reminded of how Jayne was an awful like "The Cat That Walked By Itself" from the Just So Story by Rudyard Kipling. I struggled with how to put it to words for about 4 days. I got a headache, my eyes hurt. Went and laid down a spell… woke up with this burning a hole in my brainpan. Hope you enjoy it. This is my first ever Firefly fic

A Just So Story

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“The tooth dulls,” River mournfully intoned from across the galley table.

That purt’ near startled Jayne into dropping Boo and the well-oiled rag he was cleanin’ her with. His large hands fumbled the gun for a brief second before recovering, and he glared across the table at her. “Gorram it, girl, can’t you see I’m busy?” Least he’d managed not to shout with surprise like he had last time she’d snuck up on him. Not that it woulda made much difference, seein’s how it was the middle of the night and the rest of the crew were snoozin’ away.

It just twern’t right, the way the moonbrained girl could sneak up on him, no matter where he was, or what he was doin’. If anyone was gonna be doing the sneakin’, it ought be him. Not that he did a heap o’ sneakin’, seein’s how he found it a lot more fun to just charge on in, guns blazin’. But still….

Worst part of it was, the crazy girl seemed to go out of her way to do the sneakin’ up on him. Like it were some kind of game or somethin’. There wasn’t hardly a day went by that he didn’t turn around and find her standin’ right there like she’d been there all along, when he knew she hadn’t. Or sittin’ right in front of him, hands neatly folded in her lap, starin’ at him with them big brown eyes, head tilted just so. Kinda like she was doin’ right now.

“Bit and gnawed too many bones, now it lacks bite for all it has no mouth,” River spoke again, a hint of sadness in her voice.

“Go hwong tong,” Jayne irritably slapped the cleaning rag down on the table with a scowl, “What’re you talkin’ bout, moonbrain?” The girl may have been sane enough after Miranda that the Cap’n let her pilot Serenity but that sure’s shootin’ didn’t stop her from spoutin’ gobbledygook most of the time.

River lifted her hands from her lap, and when they came up, so did the weapon she was holding. She laid it on the table immediately in front of her and looked at him beseechingly. “The tooth is dull and dirty, and she has no toothbrush.”

Jayne sat straight up in his chair and leaned back a fair piece, fingers wrapping around Boo, though she weren’t much good being unloaded at this particular time. “Mei yong ma duh tse gu yong,” he said with shock, and not a small amount of fear. That twern’t no tooth, it was a gorram sword. From hilt to point, it had to be as long as his arm. “Where did you get that, that ain’t mine…” It did seem familiar though.

Frowning, she informed him, “She took it. Fought for it. Killed with it. It is hers, her canine, though it did not grow root in her jaw.” River bared her teeth at him for emphasis.

Jayne blinked at her, a mite slack-jawed, and realized where he knew the blade from. His heart froze a little in his chest as he recollected back to that day on Mr. Universe’s moon, layin’ there shot up in the shoulder aside Zoe, Doc bleedin’ all over the floor and Inara doin’ everything she could to stop it, lil’ Kaylee wide-eyed and too still on account of the paralizin’ poison the Reaver darts had got her with. All of ‘em hopin’ for the best when it came to Mal gettin’ that signal off, and expectin’ the worst as they all stared at that door River had disappeared through what seemed like hours before.

Then Mal’d stumbled off the lift, his mission a success. Wasn’t no point in even contemplatin’ the same so far as it came to River, not when she’d jumped into a room of Reavers and the doors had slid shut behind her, lockin’ ‘em in with her. Jayne may not have liked the girl, but no way would he have wished that kinda death on her, or anyone else. Well, maybe for Adelei Niska, but that geezer was as creepifyin’ as all get out, so he didn’t really count.

Then the sounds of fightin’ from the other side of that door faded to a big nothin’, and when they started slowly opening again, all of them’d lifted their guns and whatever else they had left and could lift, waitin’ for that flood of Reavers to come pourin’ through the doorway. But twern’t no flood to come. Just a River. A River flowin’ with blood not her own, a-wash with fire in liquid brown eyes, each hand shimmerin’ with steel she’d swept away from the Reavers in the current of battle.

The sword had been one of the two weapons she’d held that day.

In the confusion that followed the aftermath of that fight, Jayne hadn’t really taken the time or notion to wonder what the girl’d done with those weapons. No one had collected ‘em from her, least ways as far as he knew. Not that he’d woulda been willin’ to pry them from her hands no how, even if the Cap’n had ordered him too, not after what he’d just seen.

Jayne’s blue eyes nervously darted around the room, and he even took a quick gander under the table, makin’ sure she didn’t have the axe as well tucked onto her lap. That thing’d been even more creepifyin’ than the sword, if ‘twere even possible.

Finally, he recovered enough to pick up Boo and the cloth again, settin’ his hands to the task of keepin’ the gun in top notch condition for the trouble that’d be comin’ ‘round sooner or later. Things never went smooth, after all. “Cap’n know you got that?”

She merely shrugged in response, still staring at him, sad and concerned. Her hand trailed a slender finger down the edge of the long and curved blade. “It is a dull tooth. She has tried to make it otherwise, but lacks the facilities to do so. His teeth are sharp, fit for biting and chewing.” She gestured toward the knife collection Jayne had spread out on the table beside his guns.

Jayne scowled at both sword and girl as he finished wiping Boo down, putting the gun down on the table among his other girls and tossing the rag aside with exasperation. His toolkit was in the chair next to him, and he rummaged around in it for a brief moment before withdrawing an iron clamp. “Look, you want it sharpened, I’ll set it up so you can sharpen it… but I ain’t helpin’ ya, got it, moonbrain?”

A smile blossomed on River’s face and she nodded quickly, “She wants to do it herself. The tooth is part of her now, a newly grown fang in her hand. As she files the nails on her own hands, she will file the tooth to keep it ready for biting.”

“Whatever,” was Jayne’s surly response as he moved around the table to clamp his largest and flattest whetstone to the tabletop. “Give it here’n I’ll show you how to do it, so’s you don’t screw up my stone.” He paused and added with emphasis, “Just this once though. After this, you’re on your own, dohn-ma?”

River inclined her head in agreement, “Yes. I understand,” she stated clearly and picked up the sword by the blade, offering it to him hilt first.

Jayne hesitated for the briefest moment before accepting it. Last time the girl had held a blade this close around him had been the day she’d slashed him a good’un across the chest. Unconsciously, he scratched his chest where the scar with a large hand as he explained, “The blade is too long to sharpen like my knives, running the stone along the blade. I mean, well you could n’all, but like as not you’d wear that puny arm down to a nub doin’ so.”

His eyes on the girl’s slim form were critical. She had to be stronger than she looked, cause she was scrawny enough that it looked like a stiff breeze would be more’n enough to blow her over. Amazin’ that she could even hold up a blade long as this, much less swing it one handed with enough force to kill.

River stiffened slightly and tilted her head to look up at him. “She is stronger than she looks,” she informed him, her words echoing his thought as though she’d picked it right out of his brainpan.

Which like as not, she had, Jayne thought to himself with a grimace. “Anyhow, since it’s so long, you gotta run the edge across the stone, not th’other way ‘round.” Starting at the base of the blade, just above the hilt, he drew it back toward him, the steel sliding across stone with that familiar rasp that was both metallic and strangely comfortin’, all at once. “See?”

“Yes,” River’s words were clear again, and she stood up to move around the table to his side. “I can do it,” she informed him evenly, lifting her chin as she regarded him.

The galley may have been one of the larger rooms on Serenity but it sure felt a lot smaller to Jayne when the girl was standing right there beside him. He straightened, giving a gruff nod as he let the sword tip dip down to point at the floor, holding it by the hilt. “An’ since I’m bein’ fair civilized to ya at present, we’re gonna hafta come to some sorta unnerstandin’. Since I done this for ya, you gotta do something for me, a barter of sorts, like. So no more sneakin’ up on me, ya got that, girl?” His blue eyes dropped down to her bare feet, “Put some shoes on, stomp, or something. I’m just tired of all the pussy-footin’ around. Dohn-luh-mah?”

River cocked her head slightly, “She is not a cat, but a girl. Jayne is a cat. But either way she agrees to try not to surprise him.” She put the slightest emphasis on the word ‘try’.

“Shiny,” Jayne grumbled out, pushing the sword into her hands, and then he stopped dead as something occurred to him, and his grip tightened on the hilt even as she placed her hand on the hilt as well to take it from the merc. Glowering down at her, he snarled, “Wait a tick, did you just call me a cat? Look, ya crazy moonbrained girl, I ain’t no cat. Cause Jayne Cobb ain’t no pu…” Before he could get the word out, he realized she was babblin’ some sort of stuff n’nonsense on him again.

Because he didn’t release the hilt as expected, her smaller hand settled alongside his, her cool skin touching his. Her eyes clouded and River spoke softly, “EAR and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild--as wild as wild could be--and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.”

Jayne could do little more than blink at that. “Ta-whozit?? “ He’d seen Crazy go, well… crazy before but this was a new high. Or low, dependin’ on how ya took that pill. (Did she just call him her beloved?) Still and all, her voice had a rhythm to it that was mesmerizing, like a song spoken out loud, almost like he could tap his foot to it the way he tapped his foot when he played a note or three on his guitar.

He was on the verge of askin’ her if she was alright, cause she was still starin’ off into the black. But before he got a chance, she’d drawn in a breath and kept right on with what he now realized was some story he’d never heard before. The more he listened, the more it sounded like some of the stories his Ma used to tell him and his brothers and sisters when they were lil ones, and in sore need of a bedtime tale to slow their thoughts down enough to sleep.

It was still awful strange though, not just cause it was coming from the moonbrain, but cause the story itself was odd to hear, tellin’ bout how woman had tamed all manner of creatures, including man, who’d been a tetch wild his own self before being corralled by the woman’s hand. The only one she’d been unable to tame were the cat, who walked by himself. Instead, they’d had to come to a kinda mutual arrangement that benefited both the woman and the cat… but that let the cat do his own thing without bein’ tied down like the dog and the man were.

Jayne wasn’t sure he got the whole meanin’ of the story (cause one thing he recollected was Ma sayin’ was that all stories like that got some kinda meanin’ or ‘nother, even if’n you couldn’t always understand it). But by the end of it, he was thinking maybe it weren’t so bad to be like a cat… well like that particular cat, anyway.

It was utterly quiet, and Jayne blinked a little, suddenly realized that the story was over. River was still standing right in front of him, staring up at him expectantly, though he had no idea why. “Huh.” He finally said, mostly cause he couldn’t think of nothin' else to say.

Lightly, she drummed her fingers on the back of his hand, which had yet to let go of her sword and tilted an eyebrow inquiringly. “Are you going to let me have it back, or will I have to take it?” she asked evenly.

Soundin’ sane enough to take on a whole room of Reavers again. Or crazy enough, dependin’ on how you eyeballed it. Jayne immediately let go of the blade and took a step back, still staring at her like he’d never seen her before. Collecting his thoughts, he gruffly said, “Yeah, sure,” before moving around the table and sat down heavily in his chair.

River expertly twirled the curved former Reaver blade in her hand and then settled in on sharpening the weapon, the familiar rasp filling the room. “So…” River began, her brown eyes flicking over to him for a moment. “So do you like Kipling?”

Jayne picked up one of his own knives, the trusty combat knife he kept tucked in his boots just in case of emergencies. Hawkin’ up a glob of spit to wet a small sharpening stone with, he finally shrugged. “Hell if I know, I ain’t never kippled.”

There was a long pause, and this time, Jayne was unable to stop himself from dropping the knife with surprise as River burst out laughing. Not crazy laughs like she did sometimes when she was sitting alone and had her hands over her head as if blocking out noise no one else could hear. Not even childish giggle laughs like the ones he’d heard her do when Kaylee was chasing her all over the boat to get back some piece of fruit or whatnot the girl’d playfully swiped. Instead, these were the deep and lasting guffaws of someone who’s been told of one of the best jokes they’d ever heard. And he had no idea what he’d said to set her off.

Muttering under his breath about how the crazy girl was tryin’ him into stabbing himself and make him just as moonbrained as she was all at the same time by doin’ her dirty work for her, Jayne bent down to pick up the knife that had somehow managed to miss imbedding itself the top of his foot by a hair, if ‘twere that much.

River finally calmed down enough that she could keep on with her sword sharpening, though every now and again another amused chuckle would escape her, mingling in with the swipe and rasp of steel on stone.

He could feel her warm glances on him during those moments, and though there was no ruttin’ way he’d a ever fessed up to it, Jayne found the girl’s laughs had their own sense of comfort that was completely different from that.

“Huh.” How ‘bout that.

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dohn-ma - Understand

Dohn-luh-mah - Are we clear here?

Go hwong tong - Enough of this nonsense

Mei yong ma duh tse gu yong - Motherless goat of all motherless goats